Postholes can be dug by hand, but are usually dug using an auger. The auger contains a steel shaft fitted with a peripheral spiral blade. Rotation of the auger causes the spiral blade to dig into the ground. The auger is typically rotated using a hydraulic motor that can be fitted to an excavator, a bobcat, or any other suitable powered device. It is however envisaged that certain augers can be manually rotated.
The auger digs into the ground to the desired depth and is then lifted out of the ground. This is achieved by raising the entire auger using a hydraulic ram. For instance, the auger may be coupled to a hydraulic motor, and the hydraulic motor may be coupled to the front lifting arms of a bobcat. When the auger has dug into the ground to the desired depth, the front arms of the bobcat are lifted to pull the entire auger out of the ground to form the posthole. Invariably, a quite considerable amount of the earth falls back into the hole upon removal of the auger.
Therefore, it is always necessary to clean out the formed postholes by removing the loose dirt that has fallen back into the hole. Typically, for smaller holes this is done by hand or using a small hand scoop. For larger and deeper holes a shovel is used, and it is known to have shovels with a relatively narrow shovel blade designed to clean out the deeper holes without damaging the hole profile. It is also known to provide a special hole cleaning device which comprises a pair of long arm scoops which are pivotally mounted to each other in an X type configuration. However, this tool is difficult to use and is not extremely efficient in scooping out loose dirt from a hole.